Dont buy a chiller ... use a heat exchenger

[StirCrazy]

not the best way to do it for a few reasons, the first being it only works when you are running your ro unit, the second is that it is a pretty expensive way to cool water if you pay for your drinking water, also rather environmentally irresponsible waisting that much of a resource that is becoming limited in most of the world but that people in BC seam to take advantage of.

when I first moved to Kamloops there was a fixed charge of 20 bucks a month for water and I can't tell you how many people would run a almost empty dish washer, or water there lawn for 3 hours every second day. now that we have meters and pay for the volume we use over a base amount you don't see this happening very much.

now if you want to keep it cheep, then buy a bunch more of that plastic line and put another coil in a bar fridge then add a small pump to cirulate the water between the coil in the fridge and the coil in the sump. cheeper to set up than a real chiller but still not as good.

Steve

[Reef Pilot]

I am not sure you really have to waste that much water, as you can slow the flow just enough to cool the sump water. The reason I say that is that in a past house, we had a solarium off the deck that could get quite warm in the summer sun. So I installed a DIY air conditioner using a similar principle.

I got an old car rad from the scrap yard, and built a window like frame, complete with shutters (no ghetto look) to house the rad on one side of the solarium. On the other side, I installed a good sized exhaust fan (also found at a scrap yard), to draw outside air flow through the rad. I modified the rad ports to fit a garden hose, which I would connect outside. The output of the rad then went to a sprinkler for the lawn.

I controlled the flow with the outside water tap, and was surprised how low a flow was needed to provide very good cooling from the rad. We also opened the patio doors to the house, and it would be cooled down as well. I usually had the flow higher than needed for cooling, just to get enough water to make the lawn sprinkler work.

Anyway, the DIY air conditioner worked great, and the bonus was having my lawn watered, which was also needed during prolonged warm spells.

BTW, temps hit 31 C today here in Langley.

[mark]

I had tried similar to warm the source water for the ro unit. Thought higher temperature better rejection rate, don't think it did anything so removed, plastic not being the best for heat transfer. Did get lot of tubing out of it for other projects.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by mark

I had tried similar to warm the source water for the ro unit. Thought higher temperature better rejection rate, don't think it did anything so removed, plastic not being the best for heat transfer. Did get lot of tubing out of it for other projects.

Plastic is definitely Not the best material for heat transfer. But it works on small water volume like mine (65 Gal +sump).
My tank is 23.5 C rock solid even when its hot outside. And that is on slow drip rate.

If you search for NEU you will find that they use heat exchange principle as well.


they use same principal but they extract heat from sewer and storm water via heat pump and thrugh heat exchangers heat up water for Olympic village and SE False Creek. They make tons of money and are being able to keep heat and hot water rates below what BC Hydro charges to do the same with electricity.

If you ever get to go to any of the mechanical rooms of the building that is hooked up to NEU and look at the size of the heat exchanger that serves 4 or so story building you would be surprised how small it is. Its approximately 3 feet high by 2 feet wide !. This is not a joke. Obviously its not made out of plastic, and its thermally insulated, my point is, its very efficient.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

not the best way to do it for a few reasons, the first being it only works when you are running your ro unit, the second is that it is a pretty expensive way to cool water if you pay for your drinking water, also rather environmentally irresponsible waisting that much of a resource that is becoming limited in most of the world but that people in BC seam to take advantage of.



Steve

All good points and you are correct, accept one thing; it is not dependent on RODI in any way, i just used existing RODI tubing for easy hookups.
This can be used independently, just run water from cold tap through the heat exchange coil and drip back to the drain. No moving parts, one manual control valve for the flow and that's it. Simplicity = dependability and reliability

As for water wasting yes, it drips to the drain. However when it rains 20 days out of 30 and you don't have a water meter ... i am not that much concerned, and below are the reasons.

Have another look at this at a different angle:
No need for electric power to run this unit, but to produce power to run chiller it will take river water to turn the turbines , or burn coal, or get it from Nuclear plant and we all know how wonderfully "safe" the Nuclear power is, plus environmental impact of making aluminum, copper, plastics are highly toxic and this definitely will pollute the planet eventually. With that in mind my unit may be even more environmentally clean and friendly then buying running and scrapping a chiller.

jmtcw

[mike31154]

While this might work well for you without a water meter & all the rain, it wouldn't be cost effective or environmentally friendly in areas where water is a bit more precious, like where I live. When things get too warm in the summer, I simply try to keep the room the fish tank is in cooler by running a portable air conditioner. Don't need a chiller since my lights are LED & don't add much heat to the tank.

As for your reasoning that it takes power, turbines etc. to produce electricity for a chiller, we are fortunate in BC to have mostly hydro electric power stations run by dams, not much coal burning or nuclear going on here. Still, it's never a good thing to waste power, you don't know what you got until you lose it. In any case, the water you're using to run your heat ex-changer is delivered to your house using some big honkin' pumps that the city runs using electric power.

Still, it's great that it works for you, but in my area, with the city cranking up the water rates & a meter in the basement, I think I'll keep running the air conditioner for the week or two during the summer when it's really hot.

[rynoe]

Could also reverse the process. Fill a cooler with ice and place your coil in the cooler. Then pump tank water through it. Works well for the few days a year we need to cool our tanks.

[straightrazorguy]

Pretty smart system, if potable water is no issue. Like someone else said, we are blessed with cheap and plentiful water and power in BC.

And speaking of plentiful cheap power, I use a fan for cooling. Both my DT and refugium are open top, so a properly aimed fan hooked up to my Reefkeeper will turn on when the water temperature calls for it. It works like a charm!

[RuGlu6]

All bring up very good points.
As for power needed to run tap water, its already there , we use it anyways to wash dishes and take a shower. Few drops per second more to the drain when our reservoirs are overflowing... is it that bad?

If so then why don't we go after chemical industry companies and metallurgy to make them stop wasting river water and to make them stop polluting and killing fish by the trillions?

I am taking clean water out of environment, and then after i cool down my tank i put it back to the environment still clean, non toxic and unpolluted with industrial waste.

Naturally people will choose electricity in places where there is no or little water and Hydro is cheaper then water, i, most likely would do the same.


The big question is ; why we talk, talk, talk about saving a planet and being environment friendly if all this comes down to money anyway?

[milou]

fan doesn't work when outside temperature is like 30+ C. I used frozen coke bottle for emergency but i think I will try your heat exchanger method. Last summer I lost bunch of frags due to the heat. This time I won't repeat the same mistake again.